Next Saturday, June 11th, Dr.Nikki Gammans will give a presentation on Bumble bees. She is currently engaged in a project to re-introduce The Short-haired bumblebee (Bombus subterraneus) which is extinct in the UK but survives in New Zealand and Sweden.
We've made a few alterations to the Pavilion. The partition wall onto which Bill Mundy projected his Powerpoint presentations has been removed and the end wall, of the Pavilion, panelled in plywood and painted white to make a new larger screen. We estimate that we will be able to accommodate an extra eight people seated for Talks or Presentations.
The Apiary now has four colonies one in each of the Beehaus, the Dartington, the Top Bar hive and H7 (a national). Another six colonies, (5 frame Nucs) will be collected soon.
We also have a feral colony temporarily housed on site. This colony is in a very old very decrepit brood box and super all glued together with propolis and wild comb. We placed a new brood chamber with frames of drawn comb and foundation over the colonies wild home, in the ancient boxes, in the hope that they would move up into the new box so that they can be properly managed. They have moved into the new chamber but are still using the old boxes extensively so we have re-configured the tower to comprise a floor, the new deep, then a Snelgrove board and on top of this the old component of their home. We intend to bleed off as many of the bees as possible into the lower chamber by manipulating the Snelgrove board entrances. Colin the colony's owner intends to re-queen at the end of the month and move them to a new site.
See you on Saturday
Barry
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